The first step on a dark path

With the spirit mostly, well... Gorandis wasn't sure what to call it, pacified would probably fit the best but that sounded... wrong to him. Like he was trying to lord it over him. When that really wasn't his intention at all... Or at least that's what he hoped. It was, to put it lightly, a tumultuous relationship between them and it was going to be strained...

But, he had his own problems to deal with and the solutions, hopefully, lay in the CItadel with this imperfect yokai lord that he had heard so much about. And Gorandis was more than scared. Far more than scared... To walk through the Yokai lands, a beacon of occultism himself... he ran into trouble more than once, but, well.

The trouble was dealt with. And eventually he was lead into the citadel proper, having finally been given the chance to speak with some of Dumuzid's minions. They lead him to... a man? Well he looked human enough, despite the horns. "A-ah, excuse me sir..." Gorandis bowed low to the hooded figure. Fear and fatigue were apparent on his voice.

"I am here to see the imperfect lord Dumuzid. I have come on Lorelei's suggestion... I... I would appreciate it if you lead me to him..."
(Gorandis Fester)

"What, am I not intimidating enough yet for the answer to be clear enough?"

Dumuzid shrugs, grinning wide - new people are always nice to see. They're a signature of a growing population, and while the many random humans and lesser-tiered Yokai that flood the Citadel by the day don't go as noticed by the eyes of the Imperfect himself, there are select sorts that.. well, as Gorandis' arrival had proven, garnered a more distinct sense of welcoming behavior. "Anyway, I am the one you seek - the one by the name Dumuzid Balaraq." Lightning crackles with the Imperfect's words, and his teeth snap against his tongue upon every closing of those lips of his. The being isn't human by any means--

Even if you can't feel his immense darkness, somehow, the attunement with lightning that pulsates throughout Dumuzid as a whole.. it's enough to assure even the dumbest individuals of his monstrosity. "Anyone who comes on Lorelei's suggestion - if she even gives suggestions - is one I'd like to meet," he uttered aloud, levitating forwards until his gaze rested more closely against Gorandis' own. Even so, though, did attention find itself split between the Fester descendant and an icy casket below the frigid Citadel pond-waters. Whatever it held deep down there was.. critical, really, to the Imperfect, and to those who'd look..! It was blood. The inside was spattered with gore, too. Nothing could be easily seen.

But it was obviously a body preserved.

"What do you seek from me?"
(Dumuzid Balaraq)

"Am I not to have an eye for talent?"

Creeak!

The doors of the citadel slowly swing open, the Malpercian girl pushing herself through the and into the foyer. She wasn't too suprised to find the girl--and in truth wasn't suprised to see much of anything anymore. They came--they always do. That--or they died.

And if they said, Lorelei had a nasty tendancy to forget about them.

She stands, blazing skull in hand (for she never found a place that was suitable for storing it...), staring down the gathering ahead. "Found them wandering and without purpose. Told him he needed to learn how to kill or die himself. Seems he's chosing to unlock the potential inside. Be gentle, will you?"

The nasty tone she takes! It's as if to mean the opposite of gentle! The scoundrel.

"Something about a certain madness to be...'controlled'."
(Lorelei)

"Y-you... you're the imperfect?" Gorandis swallowed hard. Did he just insult him? Well, he hadn't been expecting something that looked so... human, really. He had been expecting some sort of four storey tall behemoth. Not, well this... The power was there though, that was something he was absolutely certain of. He could feel it, the pressure of his power...

"Well I--" He was interrupted by Lorelei's arrival. She seemed to state everything for him really, but he was still incredibly on edge and the creaking of the doors did not do much to ease any nerves that were on end. "Ah, yes... as she says... the, uh, urges I get from using my occultism. The wants to, well, kill... violently. I... I don't want to have to deal with them anymore."

He pulled his hood back to reveal eyes that appear to have never had sleep. Ones with bags so heavy it looked like he was wearing puffy eye shadow. "It... it keeps me up at night, remembering what I've done... fearing what I will do. I want it to stop... I... I've tried other things. Gotten people to watch over me, ones to keep and eye on me..."

"But none of it has worked so far. So I... I come to you as, well, a last resort."
(Gorandis Fester)

"You do have a tendency to find the right sorts, to be fair."

He waves his hand, as if to wave away the subject as a whole - complimenting anyone in general is quite obnoxious for the Imperfect, let alone complimenting one who.. well, one who was so incredibly difficult to get to budge herself. She was stubborn to an extent he really hadn't known prior, truthfully. An impressive prodigy of a human (technically), to be sure, but also one of the hardest sorts to deal with. "It's beside the point," Dumuzid announces, dismissing the topic with what ability he can manage. "This human is obviously restraining himself in some manner or another."

"Holding back Occultic desires is - stupid, frankly, and especially so for humans," he murmurs aloud, drifting forwards over the pond-waters. When coming in contact with his metallic boots, the surface of the pool freezes over, turning slick with icy-cold material.. before melting thereafter, as if the whole of the container of water is a protected vat to prevent would-be thieves from taking one of Dumuzid's most prized possessions. "If you do not indulge in the urges without a specific aptitude for neutrality or an artifact to aid you, you will experience sickness and illness." Despite levitating forth at a relatively advanced speed, he stops at his aforementioned pool's edge.

"If you want me to restrain those urges for you - one day, they will explode," he notes, "Worse than ever before. If you want me to help you embrace them, however, well-- "

He nods to Lorelei.

"The best masters of their urges, or those who promote them the most, often make leaps and bounds in power."
(Dumuzid Balaraq)

"Now that he's here, Dumuzid, I'm asking you directly. Control of this is boring..."

The girl gestures towards Gorandis, a light smirk on her face. It was rare she expressed emotion, even rarer that they were positive. She steps forward, her leathered heels making a light click against the ornate stonework before them. "...I wanted him to see you to incite that madness. Overwhelm it. A trial-by-fire to realize it is a way of life, not something to hold back. You would think I'd bring someone her for restraint!?"

Goranids' sanity was being thrown under the bus, without a single care given by Lorelei for his emotional state or connection with the world. Live--die. All the same to her.

Yet there was a certain--a certain noise to the citadel that Lorelei had not been used to. The drowning out of Adramelech's endless whispers had meant that most white noise was drowned out--Adramalech's or otherwise. Yet now--

Lorelei looks left. Another child? Then to the right. More teens? Prisoners?

"...Why is everything so loud...?"

Lorelei frowns.
(Lorelei)

"Promote them? I--" He looks down to his hands. His emotions warred across his tired face. How could he? He didn't want to kill, he never wanted to kill... To want otherwise... that would just be... Be what, exactly? Be inhuman? Well what was the problem with that exactly, really? Gorandis had wanted to, in his own words, not be a monster...

But why? He thought back to when he had ended that first life, the only life. He had felt powerful... overjoyed. He had felt like he was far more than he ever was. When he hadn't known about his magical capabilities... was that what he was clinging on to? A vague sense of the past. That he didn't want to change too much from that?

Why would he want to be like that again? He hated it now, why would he want to suppress himself back to that? "I... I don't-- How could I just embrace it? How could I just see destruction as, normal?" Even now, even now in the face of the most powerful occultic being on Valmasia, he was still trying to hold back. "What...."

"What will happen to me if I embrace it?"
(Gorandis Fester)

He shrugs.

"I genuinely have no idea whatsoever," he announced in reply to the likes of Gorandis. The intent of Lorelei was questionable, and it was probably some degree of absolutely certain that the budding Occultist was regretting his alliance with the Malpercian. She was underhanded, oftentimes, and found herself twisting those below her into a wicked malpractice of their usual arts or behaviors: be they regular humans or other, similar creatures who'd challenged her to a duel of deathly proportions or similarly usual individuals who, like Gorandis, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, their wills were frequently broken. To escape that vile amalgamation of Yokai and human's arm.. well.

He held a respect for the bastard child of Valmasia's two strongest races.

"Some react violently. The weak oft lose themselves to their urges and become savages, no longer truly human at all," Dumuzid explains, his voice lowering and his pitch following suit as if intending to spook the newly-arrived Gorandis. Even if he didn't really agree with Lorelei's rather overwhelming treachery (at least in minor amounts), it was still fun to mess with humanity. Especially so, of course, for the unsuspecting sorts. Those who dabbled in the Occult could be dabbled with themselves by a master as proficient in the dark arts as Dumuzid himself, and, stepping forwards, that fact was made utterly apparent to his chosen soon-to-be disciple. The aura of darkness that shrouded the Imperfect became a cloak..

A cloak that'd blacken Gorandis' surroundings, 'whiting out' his world and replacing it with a void-like abysm of little more than the purplish miasma of Dumuzid's vile production. "You are of.. weak.. power," he announced. To those nearby, his voice would be of its usual booming volume - but for Gorandis, the one who he'd chosen to specifically bombard..? The Imperfect's vocals were telepathic, resounding inside the very skull of the man rather than daring to waste each word's potential on an alternative setting. In an instant, the Fester had been forced into his own mind-- trapped in the same skull he'd known since childhood.

"But not in mind, I believe. The strong turn into ones like Lorelei-- " He pauses, leaning in closer to press a thumb towards the forehead of Gorandis. "The well-equipped for this mental torment find themselves lost in boundless power - at least relative to those who'd dare not make such a sacrifice."

As soon as the Imperfect's thumb contacts the younger Occultist's forehead, the aforementioned void-abysm retreats to a focal point unseen; and, thereafter, Gorandis is back where he was before - having moved none whatsoever.

"Would you prefer to fester and die a weak soul, yet a comfortable one, or embrace your fears and become something more?" He tosses a hand against the air. "It is your choice to make."
(Dumuzid Balaraq)

Swiftly did Lorelei's attention, perhaps mercifully, fade from Goradis.

His fall into the depths of madness was something to be celebrated and encouraged, but there were more pressing matters afoot within the Citadel. There were people, and Lorelei hated people. There were few things she hated more then the never-ending cacaphony of voices and their opinions attached. Worse, most of them gave off a certain aura of weakness.

Prisoners, by virtue of their station, were weak. They had lost, and in truth should be dead--slavery was a shame that was given to those who needed to be degraded before killing.

The click-clack of Lorelei's feed echo more and more as she passed by Nahele--who, in truth, she never once had noticed went missing. Perhaps bountifully--to be captured is to be weak.

"Why are..." She overlooks Alexander, Pale Dragon and Zuzana. "...what are--" The vile disbelief on the face of the girl is viciously apparent as her lilac eyes brim with a widened, angry stare.

"...Should you all not be in chains, upon racks--bound by stone and bound by iron? Imperfect--"

She looks to Dumuzid, then shifts towards Nahele.

"--what has become of our ranks...?"
(Lorelei)

It took all that Gorandis had to not take a step back when Dumuzid approached. When the darkness came billowing out around him, trapping him in deep midnight. "I... yes, I am weak in strength. I will admit that." He seemed to straighten out of his slouch slightly to match Dumuzid's words. Gorandis was terrified, yes. But he was not about to show it.

"If I was weak in mind I would not have come here... I would not have even fought these urges. I would have turned into, as you have said... a savage." he clenches his jaw as the thumb approaches, silencing himself. And as the dark boundaries fade away he is left in quiet contemplation. fearful contemplation mind you but it was still a lot to think over.

"It is funny you should say fester..." He trails off, almost smiling at the unseen joke. "I... I want to be strong, to not be afraid of myself. To be able to... enjoy what I can do. I... I am a spiritmancer, one who deals with those in the other realm..." Gorandis seems to go off on a tangent, talking slightly more normally. "I have a spirit contracted under me..."

"One to look over me. But I... I don't think I need him anymore do I?... At least, not if I... embrace this." The words roll off his tongue like thick tar. "I... I want to become something more."
(Gorandis Fester)

"They were meant to be weapons for the sake of warding off Nostvale," he grumbles as they depart upwards. He's never seen Lorelei show this much restraint before - it's a little disconcerting, though the Imperfect doesn't care all too much. He can't.. he can't handle much more of human relationships like that, if that's truly what they appear as. Two homosexual subspecies biting at one-another at least had some degree of primal instinct involved, but this? This.. gushy trash? He wasn't going to look the other way if the Umbretarn magi sought out one of their deaths this time, no, not at all - he was going to assure that one of them fell.

Pale Dragon wouldn't be able to save his obnoxious family from the fate they'd earned themselves. Dumuzid also wasn't going to go out of his way to destroy soldiers he could perhaps use as fodder for the cannons of Nostvale, but.. Lorelei was a bit of a proxy killing machine for the Imperfect, thankfully enough. "I agreed to let them contain their human strangenesses in this castle - child included - but I've come to regret that. I had not observed 'marriage' prior, nor the fruits of its endeavors. I will not make the same mistake again." It would have, of course, been a substantially better option to slay Zuzana and her child at the foot of the Yokai forestry-- and to have brainwashed that idiotic Drakanite for soldierly purposes.

Now, it was a bit too late to save any one of them, though.

"If you've wanted an excuse from me to garner a meal from my soldiers," he suggested with a brief nod, his hood tilting downwards to hide more of his scarlet irises' blinding glare. "This would be your opportunity. Perhaps it'd show this fledgling Occultist a bit about the process as well." He turned to Gorandis, staring downwards such that their pupils would align - or hope to, anyways, the persuasive presence of Dumuzid aiming to magnetically lock his evident apprentice to his own being. He was.. feeble. Not of weak mind, at least, but his body was soft and flimsy. "Trust the words I preach, and you won't need a single physically-lame spirit on your side to boost your strengths."
(Dumuzid Balaraq)

(omitted prisoner talk to avoid log dissonance)

Lorelei only gives the bleeding ookami half a glance before a sickly, corruptive tendril of aqueous arcana stabs through the eye of the fallen 'soldier', terminating it's life in just a moment. It was a refusal of spite and anger--for one, she wasn't in the mindset to sacrifice something so lowly (and generic). Two--the state of mind it would put her in wasn't what she wanted at the moment.

Her anger was slowly rising, bit by bit, and she needed clarity for what she was about to do. More sudden, horrific tendrils of raw depraved mana exude from the girl in a spurt of sheer wrath.

It was sin without a sin--the peak of rage one can experience without diving into the depths that corrupt a soul undoubtedly.

"...Appreciated."

There are few words given as Lorelei throws the skull within her hand high into the sky--the form of a lion-human hybrid emerging from the core and walking side by side with Lorelei.

"Nahele!" Cries the Malpercian, her feet stomping against the ground with rage. "Gorandis!" She follows up, staring at the Cyclops in her path--grasping it by the collar of his armor as she passes. "And you! Come! Find some chains! It's time for prisoners to be prisoners."

Upwards she goes...
(Lorelei)

"I... can't just let it go..." He could hear the spirit's voice arguing in his mind, shouting even over Dumuzid's booming voice. It was not happy with him, and the decisions he was making... But why should he care? Lorelei was right... why shouldn't he just take control? Why shouldn't he just dominate the spirit, bind it to his own will?

He had tried to help it, and it had spat in his face... or so he now thought. The red rage began to bubble once more. And in this place, seeped with occultism, it just continued to grow. His right hand curled into his fist and for a single moment, the crimson lightning flashed around it. "I... no, I don't need to listen to the spirit..."

"I... I trust you." He nods to Dumuzid lightly, as if he was light headed and off balance. "I don't need to listen to this..." And with another flash of the red lightning he felt a weight off of his mind as the screaming stopped. Replaced briefly by a cry of anguish and then... silence. His head was empty and ready to be filled up with whatever words Dumuzid had.

Or at least it was until Lorelei shouted out. "What, me? I-- you want me to help deal with the prisoners?"
(Gorandis Fester)

Just as she steps foot outside the Citadel- her name is called. She stops abruptly, forming a grimace. It annoys her- as she was just about to depart. While the others may not know that she is about to return- she finds herself impatient, craving the knowledge needed to gain power-

"Oh?" Time for the prisoners to be prisoners. "Hakia. Lasswell. We're going to postpone our trip for just a moment-" Two clouds form within her palms- each float away rapidly, only to return in seconds with an abundance of chains. Of course, they are held up with various ice particles--but it appears as if they are floating upon the clouds.

"If one of them acts out, I want to- ah, nevermind. Let's go." Lorelei seems to be in a hurry, and while she is in one herself, she can't help but ponder- what did the malpercian have in mind for these cretins?
(Nahele)

Listening to the roar of voices which were booming throughout the citadel it was clear that they needed to move on from here and get themselves to a place where they would be able to train without disrupting the people around them, walking through the main chamber and up the stairs to a room which looked rather sinister he peered around wondering what kinds of things might have happened within this place but it was nothing compared to what Zuzana had to say next and it began to make his thoughts run wild.

"If the imperfect wants you alive then at least there is a reason... though I am curious to figure out what that reason might just be since there are usually deep spread plans but I guess for now we will just have to wait..." thinking about the training session it was of utmost importance for them to be in the best shape possible in order to prove themselves worthy if that might be apart of something bigger, it was not going to be easy for them to gain strength within this short time period but it was necessary for survival because if there were people here that might want them dead it was not a good sign.

"Alright well I will use a wooden sword to test your strength against me, you need to show me absolutely everything Zuzana so there is no holding back." he drew the blade and held it firmly wondering how he was going to go about this, slowly his body became a blur to reality with each muscle strand accelerated and he was ready to launch himself across the room.
(The Pale Dragon)

The towering Cyclops goes up stairs in order to join everyone else. It was rather lonely downstairs now. His singular optic scanning through everyone who was present. Not really sure what to make of things.

It did however seem that Pale and Zuzana were training.
(Dunakala)

Following behind the cyclopes he'd stand behind everyone as they we're confronting the two it seemed.

He wouldn't want to stay downstairs for it was empty, and it would be possibly more lonely then usual so he'd follow them to check on what they we're going to decide to do.
(William Chiston)

Click...

The heel of the girl hits against the stonework with an otherworldly force--as if the very spirit of Adramelech was carrying weight within her. Every step is that of a stomp--Lorelei's own way of letting the world know she was unhappy. Only moderately different then a toddler through a tantrum should it have not rang out with otherworldy power.

Straight up the stairs she goes--stopping only at a small shelf beside the staircase up to conveniently rip chains from their weldings to the wall and into her hands. The afflicted, Malpercian hand grips tightly against the cold iron, the breathing of Lorelei deep and vicious with every step she takes.

Clink...

Clink...

Iron rings that make up the chain drag behind her as each link hits against the stone stairs she rises so swiftly upon. It was a dark, ominous ringing--the bells at the final hours of the day when the sun sets and moon eclipses the sky with a harrowing darkness.

Behind her, Adramelech stands with it's flaming skull--his chains ethereal and non-existant. Lorelei's, however, were very much real--and very much vicious. Rusted, and even they threaten to snap under Lorelei's strained grip.

"Your protection has been revoked!" cries the Malpercian as she glares at the two trainers upon the topmost of the Citadel. It seemed Lorelei was displeased, gravely, by the treatment that the prisoners had been given.

Alexander, in truth, hadn't quite been noticed--for he had been quiet. The survivalist inside him might just say staying quiet and unknown was the key to keeping a smile on his face.

Lorelei lashes her iron chains once against the ground with a harsh, cacaphonic clack. "Easy way or the hard way!"

She advances towards the Pale Dragon with chain in hand, the afflicted limb reaching out to grasp the taller Drake by the shoulder and force him upon the ground.

"Nahele, the other."
(Lorelei)

This was what Lasswell had come to witness.

Prisoners who hadn't done anything to earn the respect of those that had stood alongside Dumuzid since the beginning. Those who had only come to join him the very moment their own side seemed to fall apart, those who were not true warriors in the eyes of Lasswell. Those who sought only power to be granted from him as though they were some kind of vulture looking only to scavenge a carcass of strength before moving on to the next. In the end they deserved nothing, in the end they deserved only to have their weapons stripped from them and to bend the knee eternally towards Dumuzid. That could be the only fate for those who went against him.

"Why do prisoners feel the need to train..? Is it to act against our Lord I wonder? To go against him?" He spoke as his mind had already seemed set on seeing each chained at the hands of this Malpercian. To witness them all scream his name so they could truly understand what power their Lord Dumuzid really held in store. What power they might attempt to go against in time as they had the moment they chose to strike out against those in The Citadel. It was these same bodies that had allied with Lara, was it not? These same souls that thought themselves able to stand against this absolute power.

How wrong of them... Yet he spoke not a word.
It would be easier if they all just gave in, wouldn't it?
(Lasswell)

How exciting! Everyone else had their own reasons to, put it bluntly, enslave those that had been captured. Be it malicious hatred, a staunch desire to bend their free will beneath a heavy boot of oppression, or some other such reason! Hakia, however, only followed the orders of her 'Archon', and for her.. Enslavement was more of a selfish, materialistic desire. "Can I make them cook for me! And make my bed! And.." Her voice trailed off when the more important types started talking, the teen's eyes shifting from the late freedom fighters, to the soon-to-be prisoners.

With her hands in her pockets, she'd maintain such a childishly bright smile, like a teenage daughter that was about to get her very first cell phone! The brown eyes swaying about excitedly before she stands close to Nahele.

Wherever the Ookami went, she followed, quite closely at that. Otherwise, she remained silent about the overall decision. But the smile on her face likely spoke volumes of what she believed in.
(Hakia Najii)

She follows behind Lorelei with her Knight and Oath-Bound, curious, oh so curious as to what his unpredictable force has in mind. Were she going to kill them, enslave them, beat them- ah, but her inquiries are all answered and the Malpercian advances upon The Pale Dragon. "With pleasure." She nods towards Lorelei. While she isn't used to taking commands within the Citadel- the Malperician had yet to make any demands that she wouldn't comply with.

"As she said- you can resist, or...you can waste our time." She scoffs, not believing either of them to be a threat to herself, of girl with the demon arm. "I have to warn you though- I'm in a bit of a hurry. If you make me stay her longer...than I need to be, I'll make sure you regret it." She snaps, pointing a finger towards Lasswell.

"Truth be told, only Hakia and I need to meet up with the others-" So. "If this one resists." She walks slowly, with a rather relaxed facial expression, only to stop before Zuzana. "Lasswell, you are to crush her." She doesn't create a storm, she doesn't use any magic with the intent to scare them, really. She merely gazes at the drakan with an annoyed expression...

As this should have been done long before she returned home.
(Nahele)
[16:14:01] Gorandis followed quietly. Lorelei seemed... well, displeased to say the least and now she wanted him to fight someone? He looked over to the woman she had indicated... she still had her child with her after all. But, no, he was here to cast off his protections, to fight these urges... He was here to, for lack of a better term, let loose the darkness within.

But, Gorandis grit his own teeth and stared out. The red lightning now forming around him. He threw his hood back up and cast his tired face in shadow, the crimson light giving a strange edge to his features. With a wave of his hand the spirit was forced to manifest and Gorandis avoided looking at its no doubt painful and betrayed expression.

"I... alright, Lorelei. I suppose this is the first step or something..." He frowned but stepped forwards to join his would-be partner in this. An Ookami to his surprise. But he had been around far stranger recently... But new times, new allies. And if he needed to change himself, it might be good to change who he was around all the time.

"It's uh... nice to know that you are so confident... Nahele was it?"
(Gorandis Fester)

(And then I had to leave due to irl, leaving the scene unfinished but I do believe that it should be in among the others.)